Bitter Tea - The Fiery Furnaces

One reviewer opened his review by stating that he never thought that the Fiery Furnaces could release an album that was "so bad".  Contrary to his statement, he gave the album a 4 out of 5.  What he was saying was that his expectations for this album were mindblowingly high.  If you were one of the people who found Rehearsing My Choir brilliant, then you would have the same mindset.  The thing is, if you consider RMC a masterpiece, then you would have realized that the Fiery Furnaces just kept releasing fantastic material.  From the quirky, wonderful pop of Gallowsbird's Bark to the freaking mindblowing pop masterpiece of Blueberry Boat (this is beyond debate) to the light break of happy pop on EP to the theatric RMC, they just kept releasing standout material.  Naturally you would have been beyond excited for their next album.  I wasn't so high on expectations.  It turns out, no matter how interesting or theatric RMC was, it was near-unlistenable.  It really was distastfully discordant.  The grandmother's voice just couldn't carry the music well, at least I felt so.  So I didn't know what to think about Bitter Tea before it came out.  From the hype surrounding it and the first track I heard, The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry, it seemed like it was going to be a very difficult, bizarre pop record.  And that was just fine with me.  Blueberry Boat was a difficult, bizarre pop record at first for me.  I figured that this might follow along in that fantastic pop opera style.  But it sounded to me like they were attempting to be difficult for difficulties' sake.  On TVTM, they kind of are.  But on most of the rest of the record, they have a much more straightforward pop sensebility around them.  When I finally heard the record, I felt a bit let down.  Here are the Fiery Furnaces doing mostly straightforward pop (for them at least), which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so....shiny.  The music is so sparkly and electronic and...it's lost so much of the eclectic bizarreness that Blueberry Boat had.  I mean, there's a lot of backwards sounds.  That's cool, and it certainly, done right, adds a lot of FF-ness to the music.  Very quirky and cool.  Unfortunetly, it doesn't take away the electronic feel of this album.  I mean, the FF have always been a bit electronic, a lot electronic at times.  But not to this extent.  It gives the sound such a sheen...it's hard to describe.  The sound is a lot more polished than previous FF I suppose.  I havn't finished reviewing the album, but my first impression is too much polish, not enough of that original, bizarre sound the FF had.  By all means a good album, great pop, but the Fiery Furnaces could do better, or at least bigger.

7/10